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MY LITTLE TOWN 



MY LITTLE TOWN 



BY 

WINIFRED KIRKLAND 




NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & CO. 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



13" ** 



COPYRIGHT, 191 7, 
By E. P. DUTTON & CO. 



TRANSFERRED FROU 
COPYRIGHT OFFICE 

sep 28 m 



SEP 25 1917 



printed fn the United States of Htnertea 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 



Appearing originally in The Atlantic Monthly 
under the title "Christmas in Littleville," this small 
sketch, by its quiet charm and its intimate human- 
ness, made an appeal to such a wide circle that its 
publication in an accessible form naturally follows. 
The courtesy of the Proprietors of The Atlantic 
Monthly in facilitating this reprint is cordially 
acknowledged by the Publishers. 



MY LITTLE TOWN 




MY LITTLE TOWN 

|HEN Christmas came to 
me, a little girl, it came all 
musical with myriad voices. 
From the time when the 
rhythm of Prayer-book seasons swung 
us into Advent, and I began to patter 
my Nativity collects, my waking and 
sleeping hours grew strange with mys- 
tery. In silent winter dawns, those 
hours when only old men and little chil- 
dren are awake and seeing visions, the 
gemmed blackness of my window 
squares would pale and throb with 
light, brightening till the sky broke 

7 



My Little Town 

apart, and there poured forth the infi- 
nite throngs of angels, and the air rang 
with song that set me sobbing. Since 
then I have gone the way of all grown- 
ups. I cannot hear the Christmas 
angels now. All the world must wan- 
der forth from the sheltering faith of 
our fathers, and the way back home 
is curious to find. Yet perhaps we do 
rediscover the little quiet place, not 
knowing it because the light upon its 
windows is no longer the unfaltering 
light of dawn. They are stern folk 
who do not turn homeward to child- 
hood at Christmas-time. In Littleville, 
this is no hard matter, among people 
who, having tended their cosset lambs, 
find it not hard to believe that angels 
sang to shepherds; or who, familiar 
8 



My Little Town 

friends with their beasts, find it not 
strange that a God should have been 
born in a stable; or who, close-knit as 
one family in the snugness and perma- 
nence of village life, find it not difficult 
to believe in a gospel of goodwill; for 
Littleville lies as open to the stars as 
ever did Bethlehem. 

In Littleville, Christmas is Christ- 
mas still, and we do not do the poor 
day to death. In fact, whatever our 
business in Littleville, sorrowing or 
merry-making, being born or dying, 
we manage it somehow without fret. 
And thus our Christmas. The first 
signs of holiday are in the decorations 
of the editor's office/which, shaped and 
sized like a dry-goods box, suddenly 
9 



My Little Town 

goes flaunting in garniture of green and 
red paper-chains from which depend 
dumpy scarlet bells of all sizes ; through 
this network at nightfall the smoky 
glass lamps against the dusky presses 
blink bravely. One window-sash is 
lined with Christmas cards that gleam 
with frost-work and ruddy fires. I 
confess that those cards, far more than 
better ones, have for me the Christmas 
magic. Christmas is a symbol, and a 
Christmas card should be symbolic; 
that is saying it should be like the 
Christmas cards of my childhood, hav- 
ing house-windows of rosy mica and 
lawns of artificial frost-work. 

If, as the Littleville News thus an- 
nounces, Christmas is on the way, it 
behooves us to remember various du- 
10 



My Little Town 

ties. One afternoon, we of the Rectory 
look forth upon a procession that, in 
single file, and silhouetted against the 
snowy street, trudges on up to the 
church door. Each head is enveloped 
in a mob-cap, each form wears a sturdy 
apron, over each shoulder points a 
broom-handle bayonet-wise, as they 
march to duty, the good women of our 
Littleville congregation, come to clean 
the church. For two hours the ancient 
building rocks to their energy, until 
at last the carpet shows the seams 
of each well-worn patch, each smoky 
chimney gleams like crystal, and in the 
vestry-room the face of each pictured 
bishop atop of his pontifical lawn is 
washed clean of cobwebs, and our old 
ii 



My Little Town 

church that has seen a hundred Christ- 
mases is ready for one more. 

Meanwhile, this morning, we of the 
Rectory have done a little cleaning of 
our own. For some reason we always 
feel a little shaky when our housekeep- 
ing is to be inspected by Littleville eyes, 
and so we have secretly burnished the 
tea-kettle and given an extra rub to 
the nickel ware of the kitchen stove; 
for our plot is to decoy our good ladies 
to refreshment after labour. We have 
discovered that to a Littleville house- 
keeper a cup of tea in the middle of the 
afternoon savours of the Sybarite, but 
we argue that Littleville is always 
more at ease when it enters by the 
back door, and that tea administered 
in the kitchen will perhaps meet with 

12 



My Little Town 

expressed welcome rather than with 
unexpressed rebuke ; success proves our 
machinations excusable. 

Christmas comes marching on still 
nearer, as we know when one morning 
we come flying from our various cor- 
ners at the boom of a jovial voice that 
summons us. Down below there is the 
clatter of an ox-team and of a great 
cart, from which trails the Sunday- 
School Christmas tree, and on which 
our Christmas greens are heaped high, 
to be deposited presently on our porch 
by the big farmer-vestryman. Piled 
branches block egress for several days, 
but we don't care, because of the pleas- 
ant pungency borne in to us in Christ- 
masy whiffs. 

The brigade that bore the brooms 

13 



My Little Town 

now presses into service to decorate 
the church, but among them is never 
a man. It is a very strange thing about 
men that there never are any. Plenty 
of little boy-babies seem to be born; 
they do not seem to die off either, - 
yet there never are any men. Says 
Mattie, the outspoken, — as we sit 
about the roaring stove, in the rear of 
the church, stripping, bunching, and 
tying, our hands reddened with the 
frost still on the green twigs, — says 
Mattie, while she twines with green 
the hoops she has wound for every 
Christmas in thirty years, 'If I could 
have made a man for this church I'd 
have made one long ago.' Men or no, 
we somehow clamber up the ladders, 
despite the handicap of fears and petti- 
14 



My Little Town 

coats. And at last chancel and windows 
are festooned to our liking. Also we 
have arranged the white hangings and 
the white altar-cloth against the Day 
of the Nativity; and over the worn, 
soiled places, for our hangings are old 
and threadbare, we have pinned sprays 
of the blood-red holly. 

Not in the church preparations alone 
is the spirit of Christmas abroad in 
Littleville. On a fairy morning of sun 
misted by snow-flurries, my marketing 
is arrested by the sight and sound of a 
merry company. Over the hill and down 
the street they troop, the school chil- 
dren who have gone out to bring in the 
school Christmas tree. The big boys 
drag it, and the smaller fry go dancing 
to right and left and rear, funny bob- 

15 



My Little Town 

bing little figures in clumsy, home-made 
duds. As they go, they sing patriotic 
songs, for these are all they know. It 
is one of the tender ironies of life that 
their shrill voices should be piping 
'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' 
in celebration of the birth of peace 
but it is no matter about the words, 
for hearts and feet are keeping tune 
to Christmas. 

Not for the youngsters alone is the 
holiday cheer at work. As I turn to 
tug my grocery-basket up the slope, 
see our aged bus-driver, who has count- 
ed his fourscore of Christmases, jump 
nimbly from his seat, seize a sled, and 
amid the plaudits from the post-office 
door and the hardware store, cast him- 
self prone upon it, and, rheumatic feet 
16 



My Little Town 

aloft, go skimming down the glistening 
curve. 

When Christmas week comes upon 
us, our little Rectory grows full of un- 
accustomed bustle. First comes the 
meeting of the Sunday-School teachers 
to discuss the apportionment of the 
ten dollars we have to expend on the 
Christmas Eve celebration. This must 
provide a gift for each of our sixteen 
scholars, as well as candy and oranges. 
Also the five babies, who have by bap- 
tism attested their intention of be- 
coming scholars, must receive their 
fruit from the Christmas tree, all un- 
witting neophytes though they still are. 

The matter of the gift-giving is ever 
a painful one for the Rector, for it 
seems that the naughty, those who have 

17 



My Little Town 

appeared for a single Sunday before 
Christmas, plainly on booty bent, must 
be omitted from the list. If even I, 
remembering the endless dish-washings 
of the little farm-girls, the endless corn- 
rows and potato-hills of the little bare- 
foot boys, find it difficult to demand 
of them the long trudge to Sunday 
School, if even I find it difficult not to 
be lenient on Christmas, for his part 
the Rector finds it well-nigh impossible 
to temper his mercy with justice; we 
have to exercise a shameful severity 
toward him in order to restrain his 
hand from diving deep into the lean 
ministerial pocket and Christmas-ing 
every one of them. 

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve 

we assemble in the church to prepare 

18 



y 



My Little Town 

the tree, and now we actually have the 
lelp of a man, the busy Littleville edi- 
tor, who is also our busy Sunday- 
School Superintendent. We find him 
sunk in that despair which we know, 
for him, is a necessity before invention. 
Therefore we sympathize with his de- 
jection, retaining our confidence in his 
resourcefulness. It is the Christmas 
tree that does not suit him, — in truth 
it is as scraggly as a plucked fowl, — 
but presently he has fallen upon it, is 
grafting with clever wire branch after 
branch, until the tree stands remade to 
his satisfaction. However, it topples 
in perverse fashion, and I am sent fly- 
ing for the Rectory clothes-line, by 
means of which we moor the trunk 
19 



My Little Town 

securely to the knob of the vestry-room 
door. 

We are at last ready to begin labor- 
iously decorating the branches with 
packages to be in an hour laboriously 
cut down, patiently skewering oranges 
with a threaded darning-kneedle, at- 
taching tarnished tinsel angels and or- 
naments and candles; patiently and 
humbly, for the superintendent has in 
him the soul of an idealist, and is not 
easy to satisfy. But at last, as the long 
shadows begin to steal out on us from 
beneath the gallery, he dismisses us, 
to a busy two hours in the Rectory 
before we reassemble. 

In our absence, gift-bearing visitors 
have taken advantage of the gloaming 
to leave curious packages upon our 

20 



My Little Town 

doorstep. There is a generous bag 
containing a supply of Mattie's sour- 
cream cookies. There is a dressed cock- 
erel suspended by his long legs from 
the door-bell. Safely to the right of the 
door-mat stands a grape-basket twined 
with ground pine, and in it are fresh 
eggs, each encased in a fluted cap of 
green paper, each looking forth with a 
sketched face, whimsical and merry. 
We recognise in the pictured faces the 
clever hand of a neighbouring farm- 
wife, we surmise the donor of the 
chicken, but we are quite at a loss to 
place the responsibility for a generous 
sack of apples, potatoes and cabbages 
discovered at the back door. Later in- 
quiry wins no information, so that we 
strongly suspect that gift as coming 
21 



My Little Town 

from without our Anglican fold, in 
fact as due to a Baptist neighbour, ren- 
dered thus undiscriminating by the 
Christmas spirit. 

But we, too, have our gifts to make, 
and must go hastening with them now 
along the dusky streets. Littleville 
gives us of its own, and we too carry 
our home-made gifts. We know Lit- 
tleville pride, Littleville delicacy, and 
we offer nothing machine-made, store- 
new, but carry little boxes of candy of 
our own manufacture. We tie one on 
the bell-rope in the dark church vesti- 
bule where the sexton boy may find it. 
Others we leave on dark doorsteps, 
ringing the bell and then scurrying off. 
It is fun playing Santa Claus in Little- 
ville. We hurry home in time for a 

22 



My Little Town 

hasty supper before we go back to 
church for the evening festival. 

Early as we are, the superintendent 
is earlier. We find him suspended in 
air on top of the pipe-organ. A boy 
below is handing him a chair on which 
he clambers. From this perilous vant- 
age-point he is able to bring forth and 
hang up in its proper Eastern corner 
the Star of Bethlehem. The Sunday 
School could not possibly celebrate 
Christmas without the Star of Bethle- 
hem. I do not know what hand first 
made it, but our Star of Bethlehem is 
as old as tradition itself. It is formed 
of a cigar-box on end. In the lid is a 
star-shaped opening covered with red 
mica, and within is a candle, whose 
23 



My Little Town 

lighted rays simulate the rosy luminary 
of the Orient. 

Presently the babies are arriving. 
They come in soap-boxes fastened to 
sleds which are drawn into the church. 
Above a box bearing the inscription 
'Larkin's Soaps/ or 'Have you a little 
fairy in your home?' one sees a sweet 
little wind-rosy face. The Rector has 
to come down from the vestry-room in 
his cassock to welcome the babies, as 
they are gradually undone from their 
cocoon-like wrappings. 

The church is filling fast now, with 
a rustling, whispering, observant con- 
gregation. Our scholars sit a-row in 
the front pews; their heads present a 
comical zigzag line, the boys' locks 
slicked smooth by the hearty family 
24 



My Little Town 

brush that hangs by the kitchen sink, 
and the little girls' tresses frizzed to 
wantonness. The choir have taken 
their seats, crowding the railed plat- 
form by the organ until it looks like 
an over-full robin's nest. The choir 
give hearty assistance to our feeble 
piping of the carols, fcr the front pews 
are frankly intent upon the tree rather 
than upon the singing or upon the Rec- 
tor's reading of Luke's age-old story. 

He is old and wise, the Rector, and 
there is no long tarrying before we 
reach the Christmas-tree part of our 
programme. As the superintendent 
jumps nimbly forward to light the 
candles, the sixteen scholars rise and 
defile along the chancel-steps. They 
face us there, ranged strictly according 

25 



My Little Town 

to height, from a blushing hobblede- 
hoy boy to a sprite of a tiny girl, so 
eager-eyed and fairy-footed that she 
has to be forcibly pinned to the chancel 
carpet by the decorous hand of an elder 
sister, run out along the backs that in- 
tervene between them. 

The children have been instructed 
to sing 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' 
while the tree is being lighted. They 
begin each stanza bravely enough, but 
the last line trails to almost nothing- 
ness, for as the candles gleam, one after 
one, head after head turns to the tree, 
exactly like a row of dominoes filliped 
over by a finger. The line is at last re- 
stored to the front pew, and we watch 
our superintendent's every motion, as, 
slowly and impressively, he clips from 
26 



My Little Town 

the tree each gift we had so securely 
attached. 

We find it a little hard to recognize 
our names when a 'Master' or 'Miss' 
precedes, followed by our full bap- 
tismal designation and surname, we 
who are ordinarily merely Joe or Bessie 
to all the town ; but shoved forward by 
mates and teacher, each child called 
rises, receives his gift, and turning, 
faces the congregation with the trophy 
held well in evidence toward the cran- 
ing parental heads in the rear of the 
church. 

It is all very decorous. If perhaps 
an irrepressible jumping- jack suddenly 
springs aloft in the front pew, or if 
there is a smothered tattoo on a drum, 
or a baby crows to the music of a new 
27 



My Little Town 

rattle, the Rector himself is the first 
to smile, despite the solemnity of his 
surplice. Yet we of his household 
know how dear to his heart is the or- 
dered seemliness of divine service in 
the consecrated building, so that a 
thrill of apprehension runs through the 
family consciousness at the wholly un- 
expected turn the gift-giving takes at 
the close. 

The presents are all distributed, the 
candy has gone about the congregation, 
oranges are gleaming in small hands, 
but I am aware that there is still a 
sense of expectation throughout the 
church. Abruptly the superintendent 
disappears into the vestry. His back is 
toward us when he re-enters, dragging 
what appears to be a seated statue, 
28 



My Little Town 

veiled in wrappings which are rever- 
ently undone. The superintendent 
stands back, murmuring three words, 
Tor our Rector.' All Littleville sits 
breathless, beaming ; we are breathless, 
too, for what will he say to the unex- 
pected thing? There, beside the Rector, 
with the silvered scholarly head above 
the hieratic white of the flowing sur- 
plice, beside him in the very sacredness 
of the chancel there stands, swaying, 
with deep reverberant chime of the 
springs, an enormous red plush rock- 
ing-chair ! 

Only an instant the Rector hesitates, 
then the twinkle conquers, and the 
tenderness. Sometimes he uses words 
a bit too long for Littleville, but not 
now. He thanks his people in phrases 
29 



My Little Town 

simple and grave, as befit the house 
of God, warm and kind, as befit the 
hearts that are also God's house. And 
I reflect that the Christian faith is a 
homely faith, and comprehendeth all 
homely things. Then simply, as one 
to whom such transitions are natural 
as breath, the Rector passes from the 
gift he has received to that Greater 
Gift. He speaks as one whose faith in 
the Christmas creed has never faltered. 
He talks, as a little child, to little 
children, about a baby God. And I, 
too, at this moment, listen as a child. 
The faith of one's fathers ! It is a little 
thatched home to which perforce the 
gypsy brain returns at Christmas-time. 
I, too, go a-dreaming of Bethlehem's 
plain and Bethlehem's melodies as the 
30 



My Little Town 

Rector's voice ceases, and we rise to 
sing, in tones that ring to the battered 
rafters of our old church, the Gloria 
in Excelsis. 

The Benediction then, and the home- 
going. Little heads to be done into 
hoods or caps with the earlaps snugly 
down, sleepy babies to be tucked up on 
their sleds, tops and candy to be stowed 
away in parental pockets, — and all 
the little ones and all the big ones of 
our Littleville bidding us good-night 
and merry Christmas. Down the dark 
hill-streets they trundle, our friends, 
with their lanterns that bob and gleam 
and disappear as the voices die away 
into the night. 

A little while I linger on the Rectory 
doorstep all alone. Within are the rud- 
3i 






My Little Town 

dy rooms of our wee Rectory-home. 
Before me are the great branches fruit- 
ed with stars, and beyond the branch- 
es the deep Christmas sky above our 
Littleville. Again a little girl, I think 
about the herald angels. Not now for 
me those riven skies, not now for me a 
far, faint plain of Bethlehem; but is 
it not a Christmas gift from one un- 
seen that I still may hear the Christ- 
mas angels singing in humble human 
hearts? 



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